Saturday, April 11, 2015
Isis closes in on Damascus after seizing Yarmouk refugee camp
The terrorist group’s capture of the beleaguered site means it now controls territory only six miles from the centre of the Syrian capital
Martin Chulov and Kareem Shaheen in Beirut
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Martin Chulov and Kareem Shaheen in Beirut
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For more than 50 years, Yarmouk refugee camp was used as a showpiece of Syrian support for the Palestinian cause.
Now, after three years of war and siege, jihadists of the Islamic State (Isis) stalk its ruins, the regime bombs the buildings that still stand and the few remaining residents must choose between abject misery if they stay and likely death if they flee.
More than anywhere else in Syria, the fight for Yarmouk – especially since Isis stormed the camp on 9 April – has captured the shifting allegiances and, at times, cynical complexities that now define the myriad battlefields across the ruined country.
Most of the 200,000 or so Palestinians who lived in Yarmouk until late 2012 are now second-time refugees, either elsewhere in Syria, across the border in Lebanon or in Jordan.
Their leaders, meanwhile, remain deeply factionalised, unable to ease the regime siege or to stem the flow of the jihadists, who stormed the camp after four months of organising on the doorstep of Damascus, potentially changing the face of the fight for the capital.
Activists, diplomats and former camp residents contacted by the Guardian said recent events may end up proving decisive in the fight for central Damascus, only six miles north of the camp, which is in effect a suburb of the city.
With the shock of the jihadist incursion subsiding, the narrative of the regime siege is starting to change. Syrian officials have offered to rescue civilians, to whom they had denied safe refuge for more than two years. The jihadists are also attempting to claim a relative moral high ground by insisting that only they can break the blockade, after the failure of the armed opposition and the Palestinian leaders to do so.
Activists said that Isis, although present in the Hajar al-Aswad neighbourhood south of Yarmouk for at least the past six months, was not seen as a threat to the militant groups opposing the regime from within its borders, or to its estimated 16,000 residents.“They are now casting themselves as saviours of the Palestinians after besieging them for all that time,” said a western diplomat in Beirut of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. “They want to be seen as liberators, not persecutors, and this cause has worked very well for them in the past.”
The neighbouring Yalda area had remained relatively calm for the past year as a result of a locally negotiated ceasefire between regime and opposition forces, as had the surrounding area, despite Isis’s attempts to slowly gain a foothold.
Most of the estimated 600 Isis fighters who now control up to 80% of Yarmouk are local men who were previously aligned to other opposition groups, camp insiders say. Some of the militants had previously been exiled, and most of those who returned were smuggled in by the al-Qaida-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra, which remains a staunch foe of Isis in northern Syria.
“They mostly had a bad reputation and were known for thievery,” one activist said of the jihadists now in control of Yarmouk. In northern and eastern Syria, foreign jihadists led predominantly by veterans of the Iraqi civil war are immersed in more of an ideological fight.
“[Isis] is coming back today to take revenge from the civilians who evicted them, but people were unable to stand up to them because of their savagery and the fact they were well armed with medium and light weapons,” said the activist who fled to the camp’s outskirts.
Over the past five days, Syrian helicopters have dropped up to 12 barrel bombs on the camp, while reinforcing its borders to the west. Now that Isis controls the area, which is roughly five miles square, its fighters appear to be as hemmed in as the remaining civilians.
“They’ve walked into a trap from which there is no escape,” the diplomat said.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has maintained a low profile throughout the siege, which has repeatedly been described by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) as an atrocity. Throughout the past two years, the UN body has only been able to secure piecemeal access to starving residents, some of whom have died from hunger and thirst.
“The violence that began in Yarmouk on 9 April is not just continuing, it has intensified,” said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness. “Yarmouk is at the lower reaches of hell. It must not be allowed to descend further.”
“The situation is different now,” said Fathi Aboul Ardat, the PLO official in Lebanon, describing the arrival of Isis inside Yarmouk as a dangerous and unprecedented step.
When asked whether the PLO could deal with the regime, which has imposed a two-year siege on Yarmouk, he replied: “We deal with a state.”
A Palestinian academic from Yarmouk who visited the camp late last year said the PLO’s overtures to the regime are part of an internal competition between Fatah, which dominates the PLO, and Hamas, which fell out with Assad after it declared its support for the original uprising.
“All of the Palestinian organisations have been unable to rescue the Palestinians,” he said. “We need salvation. We are in the 21st century and Palestinians are dying of hunger.
“It’s not that they are selling out the Palestinians. They are incapacitated. The Palestinian organisations are like the former Ottoman Empire; they are the sick man.”
HOW TO DEAL WITH THE IRANIAN GENII?
By Eric Margolis
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The deal reached in Lausanne, Switzerland by Iran and five powers, led by the US, appears to be about nuclear capability.
In fact, the real issue was not nuclear weapons, which Iran does not now possess, but Iran’s potential geopolitical power.
Iran, a nation of 80.8 million, has been bottled up like the proverbial genii by US-led sanctions ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution deposed Shah Pahlavi’s corrupt royalist regime. The Shah had been groomed to be the chief US enforcer in the Gulf.
More than a dozen American efforts to overthrow the Islamic government in Tehran have failed. Washington resorted to sabotage and economic warfare, sought to throttle Iran’s primary exports, oil and gas, to derail its banking system, and prevent imports of everything from machinery to vitamins.
The US and Israel have used the extremist group People’s Mujahidin to murder Iranian officials and scientists.
There is no doubt that this western economic siege drove Iran to make major concessions over its nuclear energy program, a source of great national pride and prestige that broke what Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the “backwardness” imposed by the western powers on the Muslim world to keep it weak and subservient.
Like Cuba, another state that long defied Washington, Iran eventually found the price of its independence and self-interest too high to bear. As with Saddam’s Iraq, US-led sanctions caused its military to rust away and its oil exports to fall painfully.
Israel’s anguished alarms over Iran’s supposed nuclear “threat” were not even believed by its own crack intelligence services or those of the United States, but the relentless drumbeat of hate Iran propaganda convinced many in North America and even better-informed Europe that Iran is a menace.
What Israel really feared was not Iran’s non-existent nuclear threat but rather its ongoing support for the beleaguered Palestinians.
Iran became the last Mideast nation giving strong backing to creation of a Palestinian state. The Arab states opposing Israel have been silenced: Syria, Libya and Iraq crushed by war and torn asunder, Egypt and Jordan bought off with huge bribes. The Saudis have secretly allied themselves to Israel. So only Iran was left to champion Palestine.
That is why Israel made such a determined effort to push the US into war with Iran. With the feeble Arab states largely demolished or gelded, Israel’s hold on the Occupied West Bank and Golan would be unchallenged.
But for the United States, the geostrategic calculus is somewhat different. The Iranian revolution of 1979 profoundly challenged America’s Mideast imperium – what I call the American Raj after the manner in which the British Empire ruled India.
Washington’s Mideast political-strategic architecture was built on feudal and brutal military regimes. Ever since 1945, the deal was that the feudal oil states supplied oil at bargain basement prices in exchange for US military and political protection. In addition, the Arab oil monarchies undertook to buy huge amounts of American arms from plants in key political states that none of them knew how to effectively use. The most recent deal amounts to $46 billion of US weapons for the Saudis.
Washington’s Mideast Raj forms one of the enduring pillars of American global power. Though America consumes less and less Mideast oil each year, its control of the flow of oil from Arabia to Europe, Japan, China and the other parts of the Asian economy gives it huge strategic leverage. Japan and Germany both vividly remember they lost WWII because of lack of oil.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution gravely threatened this sweetheart arrangement. Iran demanded that its Arab neighbors follow Islam’s calls to share wealth, avoid ostentation, live modestly, and care for the needy – in short, the very opposite of the flamboyant Saudis and Gulf Arabs.
Iran set the example by funding extensive social programs and education. Of course, Iran’s challenge to share the wealth was anathema to the oil monarchs and their American patrons. By 1980, an undeclared conflict was underway across the Muslim world between the Saudis and Iran – one that still rages today as we see most recently in the expanding Yemen war.
US policy has been to keep the infectious, troublesome Iranians isolated and contained, rather as Europe’s reactionary powers did with revolutionary France at the end of the 18th century. While the reason given by Washington was Iran’s alleged nuclear threat, the sanctions regime was really aimed at fatally weakening Iran’s economy and provoking the overthrow of the Islamic government and its replacement by tame Beverly Hills Iranian exiles.
Unfortunately for US imperial policymakers, the dangerous chaos they created in Iraq and Syria, and the rise of ISIS, necessitated working with Iran to keep a lid on this boiling pot. That means easing sanctions on Tehran and allowing its economy to start coming back to life.
Hence the Lausanne deal. But Tehran does not trust Washington to adhere to the pact. Grand Ayatollah Khamenei asserted last week there would be no deal unless sanctions against Iran were lifted “immediately.” To many Iranians it seemed clear that Washington had no intention of lifting key sanctions, only slowly lessening relatively unimportant ones.
Washington faces a major dilemma over the isolation of Iran. If sanctions are substantially lifted, Iran will increase oil and gas exports and begin rebuilding its industrial base and obsolete military forces. Europe, Russia, China and India are all eager to resume doing business with Iran.
But lifting sanctions will make Iran stronger and even more of a political threat to America’s Mideast satraps – who want the Persian genii bottled up. Claims that Mideast states like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE fear a nuclear arm race are spurious. Save Egypt and Jordan, all are next door to Iran. Nuclear weapons have no use in such close quarters. Egyptians lack food, never mind nuclear arms.
Israel and its partisans, who have successfully purchased much of the US Congress, remain determined to scupper the nuclear deal. There are so many potential slips between cup and lip that reaching an effective, lasting deal will be very difficult. Iran is not wrong to be skeptical.
Obama’s Middle East policy is puzzling
By Rami Khouri
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So here is this week’s brainteaser about the endearing world of American foreign policy in the Middle East. What should we make of the juxtaposition of three dimensions of U.S. policy on display today: the U.S. president’s sensible statement that the real threat to Arab states, including those in the Gulf, comes as much from their internal political and socioeconomic stresses as from external sources such as Iran; the defense secretary’s acknowledgment thatAl-Qaeda is expanding its areas of control in Yemen in the midst of the current domestic and regional wars there; and American support for the war effort in Yemen that seems to promote the first two problems?
Any objective computer – or honest human being – would say that these three phenomena are contradictory and unsustainable as policies. That is because the war in Yemen will quickly increase ideological and sectarian tensions inside Arab states and between some Arab and Iranian leaders; it will also allow extreme ideological and terror groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS to keep expanding in the conducive environment created by the war in Yemen and the U.S. government’s active support for it. That in turn will fuel the cycle of new tensions and violence within Gulf and Middle Eastern counties, and probably across the world.
This is not a dilemma for the U.S. alone, because virtually all Arab countries face the same quandary that has been dramatically showcased by the war in Yemen. This is simply that top-heavy, nonparticipatory governance systems across the Arab world that rely heavily on indigenous and Western security controls to maintain domestic order have expanded waves of mismanagement, corruption and disparities that foster deep-rooted and wide discontent. These in turn have translated into small groups of radical militants that attack local and foreign targets.
When this pattern persists for half a century, as it has across the Arab region, it also leads to other troubling phenomena that Yemen also showcases: domestic state fragmentation, polarization and militarization, more active foreign military interventions, and intra-Arab military attacks and proxy wars to try and contain the spiral of insecurity, warfare and occasional state collapse.
You would think that decade after decade of seeing this happen across our region, local and foreign powers alike would conclude at some point that using the world’s most sophisticated weapons to attack the world’s most destitute societies will only exacerbate this cycle, rather than resolve it. Yet America’s top officials this week seem comfortable with continuing this approach, even though in the same breath they acknowledge its dangerous consequences in domestic and regional Arab terms.
This kind of foreign policy behavior is immature and aimless. I appreciate the difficulty of trying to fix such a destructive and failed approach to Arab realities without unleashing total chaos and mass state fragmentation and collapse in critical parts of the region. The same objective computer or honest human being we could consult on this might also say, though, that total chaos and mass state fragmentation and collapse across critical parts of the region are exactly what we have been experiencing in the past few years (in Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Libya and some corners of other lands, including Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Algeria, Bahrain and Sudan).
The new U.S. secretary of defense, Ash Carter, being the learnedHarvard Kennedy School professor that he once was, noted correctly Wednesday that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has taken advantage of the unfolding chaos across much of Yemen to gain territory and expand its base of operations as it engages in battles with several factions in the country. He added, “We are observing AQAP participating in that kind of fighting.”
So far, so good. But then he noted that the U.S. was resupplying Saudi forces in Yemen with weapons, while also providing them with intelligence, with the aim of restoring Yemen’s last president, Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi, and re-establishing order and a credible power-sharing arrangement in the country. Here is where it got dicey. Carter said the U.S. wanted the violence to end: “The U.S. is supporting the effort to get a political solution there that stops the violence at the same time that we’re contributing to the Saudi effort to protect its own security.”
Of course, security for Saudi Arabia and any state is a legitimate and priority goal. I hope the new U.S. defense secretary will ask his Harvard students, as well as the first 100 people in the Cambridge phone directory, to examine a critical policy question: Is expanding America’s legacy of fighting nonstop wars from Afghanistan to Libya for the past quarter-century, while Arab domestic conditions stagnate and AQAP and ISIS continue to grow and flourish, the most efficient way to enhance any Arab country’s security?
Infograph: Rich against poor
Rich against poor. We check the numbers [Graphic Claudia Mateus]
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By: Paul RaymondDate of publication: 11 April, 2015
The Saudi-led campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen has pitted one of the region's richest countries against its poorest. We take a look at the numbers.
The Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen has pitted the air force of one of the richest Arab countries against rebel forces in one of the poorest.
Years of conflict and lack of development have left millions of Yemenis in poverty. In 2012, the UN warned that 44 percent of the population - over 10 million people - were food insecure. International humanitarian agencies were predicting a humanitarian crisis well before the current round of fighting began.
Experts have warned that Sanaa could easily become the first capital city in the world to run out of a viable water supply.
By contrast, Yemen’s northern neighbours enjoy some of the highest standards of living in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producing nation, and the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) all have high per capita incomes, near universal access to clean water, electricity, education and health.
They may share a thousand-mile-long border, but economically speaking, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are two different worlds.
Years of conflict and lack of development have left millions of Yemenis in poverty. In 2012, the UN warned that 44 percent of the population - over 10 million people - were food insecure. International humanitarian agencies were predicting a humanitarian crisis well before the current round of fighting began.
Experts have warned that Sanaa could easily become the first capital city in the world to run out of a viable water supply.
By contrast, Yemen’s northern neighbours enjoy some of the highest standards of living in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producing nation, and the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) all have high per capita incomes, near universal access to clean water, electricity, education and health.
They may share a thousand-mile-long border, but economically speaking, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are two different worlds.
| Rich against poor. We check the numbers [Graphic Claudia Mateus] |
Yemeni militiamen say captured two Iranian officers in Aden
(Reuters) - Local militiamen in the Yemeni city of Aden said they captured two Iranian military officers advising Houthi rebels during fighting on Friday evening.
Tehran has denied providing military support for Houthi fighters, whose advances have drawn air strikes by a regional coalition led by Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic's main rival for influence in the Gulf.
If confirmed, the presence of two Iranian officers, who the local militiamen said were from an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, would further worsen relations between Tehran and Riyadh who are vying for dominance in the region.
Three sources in the southern port city's anti-Houthi militias said the Iranians, identified as a colonel and a captain, were seized in two separate districts that have been rocked by heavy gun battles.
"The initial investigation revealed that they are from the Quds Force and are working as advisors to the Houthi militia," one of the sources told Reuters.
"They have been put in a safe place and we will turn them over to (the Saudi-led coalition) Decisive Storm to deal with them."
Saudi-led air strikes, entering their third week, hit Houthi and military targets throughout the country on Saturday, pounding government buildings and a presidential palace used by the group's leaders in the Red Sea port city of Hodaida.
Ground combat between armed factions battered southern Yemen, killing around 20 Houthi fighters and two rival militiamen, residents and militia fighters said.
Bolstered by the air raids, local armed groups have been resisting the southward advance of the northern-based Shi'ite Muslim Houthis.
Residents said southern fighters ambushed a convoy of Houthis and allied forces loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh in a tribal area about 100 km (60 miles) north of the militia's base in Aden, killing 15 of the northerners.
Inside the port city, Houthi forces and local militiamen battled with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns. Five Houthis and two local fighters died, residents said.
Locals said Houthi forces were shelling civilian areas and trying to push into the Tawahi district, one of the only areas where they have no presence and home to a presidential palace and the city's military port.
While the Houthis deny getting help from Shi'ite Iran and say their armed campaign is designed to stamp out corruption and Sunni al Qaeda militants, Saudi Arabia and its allies describe them as an Iranian-backed threat to regional security.
The United Nations says the conflict, in which the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in northern Yemen in September, has killed 600 people, wounded 2,200 and displaced 100,000 others.
Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll
Do you support the demand of the Gulf states that the Houthis should withdraw from Yemeni cities as a condition for a ceasefire?
So far, 82% have voted yes.
مبعوث منظمة التحرير… السورية
حسام كنفاني
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من استمع، أول من أمس، إلى أحمد مجدلاني، الذي من المفترض أن يكون مبعوث منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية إلى دمشق، لبحث الوضع في مخيم اليرموك، لا يمكن أن يتخيل أن هذا الرجل ليس مسؤولاً في النظام السوري، أو عضواً في حاشية بشار الأسد. كل ما قاله مجدلاني، في مؤتمره الصحافي، جاء في سياق تجريم المخيم، ورفع المسؤولية عن النظام السوري في المأساة التي يعيشها، بل أعطى الضوء الأخضر للنظام للمضي في ارتكاب مجازر إضافية بحق أبناء المخيم، العالقين بين براميل الأسد وسواطير "داعش". لم يتخيّل أهالي مخيم اليرموك الذين ربما استبشروا خيراً بالتفات منظمة التحرير والسلطة الفلسطينيتين إلى معاناتهم التي ليست أبداً وليدة دخول "داعش" إلى المخيم، بل سابقة لذلك بكثير، أن يأتي هذا المبعوث بضوء أخضر فلسطيني ليُقتحم المخيم، ويهجر من تبقى من أهله، بذريعة "طرد الإرهابيين التكفيريين"، معطياً صك براءة مسبقاً للنظام السوري، على اعتبار أن "الخيارات التي كانت مطروحة سابقاً لإنجاز الحل السياسي قضى عليها المسلحون، الأمر الذي وضعنا أمام خيارات أخرى، تذهب إلى حل أمني، يراعي الشراكة مع الدولة السورية، باعتبارها صاحبة السيادة على أراضيها، وأن هذا الأمر قرار الدولة السورية الأول والأخير في الحفاظ على أمن واستقرار المواطنين الفلسطينيين والسوريين، على السواء". لم يأت مجدلاني على ذكر معاناة المخيم، طوال السنوات الماضية التي عانى فيها من حصار خانق، دفع أهله إلى حافة المجاعة، أو المجاعة نفسها، بعدما اضطروا إلى أكل الحيوانات الأليفة الموجودة لسد الرمق. لم يتذكر مبعوث منظمة التحرير الصورة الشهيرة التي توافد فيها كل من بقي في المخيم محاصراً إلى مركز للأمم المتحدة كان يوزع غذاء. ولم يسأل هذا المسؤول نفسه أساساً كيف دخل مسلحو "داعش" إلى المخيم، وكل منافذه محاصرة من قوات النظام، أو القوات الموالية له من فصائل فلسطينية يطلق عليها مجدلاني اسم "القوى الوطنية"، وهي التي يعاني سكان اليرموك من انتهاكاتها أكثر من معاناتهم من انتهاكات النظام نفسه. لم يلتفت مجدلاني إلى نيات "الثأر" التي يكنها النظام لمخيم اليرموك، باعتبار أنه وأهله كانا الحاضنة الأساس للمتظاهرين الفارين من بطش النظام السوري، خصوصاً في ريف دمشق. كل هذه الأمور لم ترد في كلام المبعوث الفلسطيني، الذي لم ير من معاناة المخيم إلا وصول "داعش" إليه. ليس غريباً على مسؤولي السلطة الفلسطينية الاصطفاف الكامل خلف النظام السوري، وهو ما أكدته ممارسات رئيسها، محمود عباس، في مناسبات عدة. ممارسات كانت نابعة من سياسة كيدية وخاضعة لحسابات الانقسام الفلسطيني، والخوف من تكريس حركة حماس بديلاً له، في ظل الصعود السياسي للإخوان المسلمين في المنطقة، بعد ثورات الربيع العربي. لكن هذا الصعود السياسي انتهى مبدئياً، وها هي جماعة الإخوان تعيش فترة أفول، خصوصاً في مصر. ولم يدفع هذا الأمر عباس إلى مراجعة مواقفه، بل على العكس، ها هو يتمادى عبر مبعوثه، منطلقاً ربما من إشارات تقارب تصدر من هنا وهناك بين حركة حماس ودول خليجية عدة، في مقدمتها السعودية. مع ذلك، يبدو أن مجدلاني ذهب أبعد مما هو مخطط له في تصريحاته، ما دفع عضو اللجنة التنفيذية في منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية، حنان عشراوي، إلى الخروج للرد عليه، مؤكدة رفض المنظمة "أن يتم الزج بالمخيم في أي عمل عسكري، من أي طرف". لكن، هل سيعفي ذلك المخيم من مجزرة جديدة؟ لا يبدو الأمر كذلك، خصوصاً أن الضوء الأخضر أعطي للنظام السوري، وها هم أهالي المخيم يستعدون لنكبة تقتيل وتشريد جديدة. لكن، هذه المرة بغطاء فلسطيني.
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من استمع، أول من أمس، إلى أحمد مجدلاني، الذي من المفترض أن يكون مبعوث منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية إلى دمشق، لبحث الوضع في مخيم اليرموك، لا يمكن أن يتخيل أن هذا الرجل ليس مسؤولاً في النظام السوري، أو عضواً في حاشية بشار الأسد. كل ما قاله مجدلاني، في مؤتمره الصحافي، جاء في سياق تجريم المخيم، ورفع المسؤولية عن النظام السوري في المأساة التي يعيشها، بل أعطى الضوء الأخضر للنظام للمضي في ارتكاب مجازر إضافية بحق أبناء المخيم، العالقين بين براميل الأسد وسواطير "داعش". لم يتخيّل أهالي مخيم اليرموك الذين ربما استبشروا خيراً بالتفات منظمة التحرير والسلطة الفلسطينيتين إلى معاناتهم التي ليست أبداً وليدة دخول "داعش" إلى المخيم، بل سابقة لذلك بكثير، أن يأتي هذا المبعوث بضوء أخضر فلسطيني ليُقتحم المخيم، ويهجر من تبقى من أهله، بذريعة "طرد الإرهابيين التكفيريين"، معطياً صك براءة مسبقاً للنظام السوري، على اعتبار أن "الخيارات التي كانت مطروحة سابقاً لإنجاز الحل السياسي قضى عليها المسلحون، الأمر الذي وضعنا أمام خيارات أخرى، تذهب إلى حل أمني، يراعي الشراكة مع الدولة السورية، باعتبارها صاحبة السيادة على أراضيها، وأن هذا الأمر قرار الدولة السورية الأول والأخير في الحفاظ على أمن واستقرار المواطنين الفلسطينيين والسوريين، على السواء". لم يأت مجدلاني على ذكر معاناة المخيم، طوال السنوات الماضية التي عانى فيها من حصار خانق، دفع أهله إلى حافة المجاعة، أو المجاعة نفسها، بعدما اضطروا إلى أكل الحيوانات الأليفة الموجودة لسد الرمق. لم يتذكر مبعوث منظمة التحرير الصورة الشهيرة التي توافد فيها كل من بقي في المخيم محاصراً إلى مركز للأمم المتحدة كان يوزع غذاء. ولم يسأل هذا المسؤول نفسه أساساً كيف دخل مسلحو "داعش" إلى المخيم، وكل منافذه محاصرة من قوات النظام، أو القوات الموالية له من فصائل فلسطينية يطلق عليها مجدلاني اسم "القوى الوطنية"، وهي التي يعاني سكان اليرموك من انتهاكاتها أكثر من معاناتهم من انتهاكات النظام نفسه. لم يلتفت مجدلاني إلى نيات "الثأر" التي يكنها النظام لمخيم اليرموك، باعتبار أنه وأهله كانا الحاضنة الأساس للمتظاهرين الفارين من بطش النظام السوري، خصوصاً في ريف دمشق. كل هذه الأمور لم ترد في كلام المبعوث الفلسطيني، الذي لم ير من معاناة المخيم إلا وصول "داعش" إليه. ليس غريباً على مسؤولي السلطة الفلسطينية الاصطفاف الكامل خلف النظام السوري، وهو ما أكدته ممارسات رئيسها، محمود عباس، في مناسبات عدة. ممارسات كانت نابعة من سياسة كيدية وخاضعة لحسابات الانقسام الفلسطيني، والخوف من تكريس حركة حماس بديلاً له، في ظل الصعود السياسي للإخوان المسلمين في المنطقة، بعد ثورات الربيع العربي. لكن هذا الصعود السياسي انتهى مبدئياً، وها هي جماعة الإخوان تعيش فترة أفول، خصوصاً في مصر. ولم يدفع هذا الأمر عباس إلى مراجعة مواقفه، بل على العكس، ها هو يتمادى عبر مبعوثه، منطلقاً ربما من إشارات تقارب تصدر من هنا وهناك بين حركة حماس ودول خليجية عدة، في مقدمتها السعودية. مع ذلك، يبدو أن مجدلاني ذهب أبعد مما هو مخطط له في تصريحاته، ما دفع عضو اللجنة التنفيذية في منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية، حنان عشراوي، إلى الخروج للرد عليه، مؤكدة رفض المنظمة "أن يتم الزج بالمخيم في أي عمل عسكري، من أي طرف". لكن، هل سيعفي ذلك المخيم من مجزرة جديدة؟ لا يبدو الأمر كذلك، خصوصاً أن الضوء الأخضر أعطي للنظام السوري، وها هم أهالي المخيم يستعدون لنكبة تقتيل وتشريد جديدة. لكن، هذه المرة بغطاء فلسطيني.
Friday, April 10, 2015
الة الدمار تستثني اسرائيل - عبد الغني الدهدوه
The Theory Once was That if the Arabs Leave Israel in Peace, Then it Would Implode due to Internal Conflicts......
Well.......
Now We See How Great That Theory was!!
NOTHING TO STOP GREATER ISRAEL NOW??
A UN-backed solution for Yemen?
Please don't laugh
By Brian Whitaker
"What's needed is a UN-backed negotiation to end the Yemeni conflict," an article in the Guardian proposed yesterday.
It sounds like a good idea. Set up a National Dialogue to bring the warring factions together. Establish an interim government and, under UN supervision, start a political transition process which – in a couple of years, when a new constitution has been drafted – culminates in the holding of parliamentary and presidential elections.
There's a problem, however. It was the failure of just such a process that led to the present conflict.
So before advocating UN-backed solutions again, we need to consider what went wrong with the previous attempt.
Unfortunately, although it was conducted under UN auspices and supported by western governments, Yemen's transition plan was mostly shaped by the Gulf's autocratic monarchs – not the best people to map out the future of a republic which had democratic aspirations.
Worse than that, though, in order to persuade President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down, they allowed him to remain in Yemen with immunity from prosecution. This allowed him to frustrate the transition and, eventually, to deploy the military forces that he still controlled to support the Houthis.
In an article for Open Democracy, veteran Yemen-watcher Helen Lackner enumerates some of the other flaws that led to the collapse of the UN-backed transition:
The transitional regime remained toothless and at the mercy of the country’s traditional political forces. In particular:
Posted by Brian Whitaker
Friday, 10 April 2015
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